The Dangers of Hide and Seek
by Black Lighted Clouds
Summary: A sort-of sequel to Never Play Cards with a Telepath; the boys are bored and the power's off so they play hide and seek to pass the time and things, as usual, go wrong. Note: this is not Jamie-bashing, it's just gentle teasing, so don't freak out.


**A/N: Y'know, the hardest thing about writing this fic was choosing who to pick on. :D**

The boys were bored. The new hyper-powered alarm system they had installed to warn them of enemies trying to creep up on them sucked all the power up for itself and caused a massive black-out in the house. Professor Chambers had managed to find a generator with enough power to keep the alarm system running over night and was at this moment in Lima trying to talk to someone in the electronics company that supplied the power to her house who could possibly come up with a solution.

This, of course, meant that the TV and DVD player were completely useless, leaving the boys at a loose end, as Professor Chambers still hadn't lifted the ban on them playing outside thanks to Jamie frightening the llamas. So they were stuck inside.

Richard had made his escape almost immediately after the woman's exit, saying he was going on another run to "push himself" a bit further. That left four teenagers in the house with nothing to do, not that they hadn't tried to find something to occupy them. They had played so many games of Perudo that Scott had developed a nervous twitch, coming up every time he heard dice rattling. Even Pedro, the reigning champion, was sick of it. Matt had once again decided they should play cards, but that had only eaten up about three hours to add onto the two consumed by Perudo. Plus, Jamie felt it wise to stop once Scott began winning consecutively again; he didn't want another catastrophe like last time.

So the four of them were currently in the living room, doing absolutely nothing; Jamie was sitting backwards in a chair with his arms hanging over its back, gazing out into the garden and cursing his faulty aim, Scott was lying on his back on the tile floor with his eyes close and his arms behind his head, making the others wonder if he had fallen asleep, Matt was lounging across the sofa, staring at the ceiling absent-mindedly and Pedro was sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor by the doorway to the kitchen, his chin resting in the is palm, his elbow on his knee.

They had all gotten into these positions about an hour ago and didn't leave them for a further fifteen minutes when Jamie got another one of his bright ideas.

"No." At the sound of the stern voice, Matt and Pedro both turned to look at Scott, who remained absolutely still besides opening his mouth.

"No what?"

"Not you." He removed one of his hands from under his black hair and waved it vaguely in his brothers direction. "Jamie."

"Why not?" Jamie demanded, dangerously close to whining, but he really was very bored.

"Because it's dumb."

"Well it's not like we've got anything else to do!" Jamie jumped out of his seat and crawled on his hands and knees over to his twin. "Besides, we used to play it all the time when we were little."

Scott's eyes open marginally to look at Jamie. "Emphasis on the "when we were little" part. What's the point, anyway? It's boring with just the two of us."

"But Pedro and Matt can play with us!" Jamie said, glancing beseechingly at the other two who were utterly confused by what was going on.

"Play what, exactly?" Pedro asked, arching one of his eyebrows.

"Hide and seek." Scott grunted. There was silence, until Matt spoke up, "Why not? It's better than nothing."

Pedro shrugged, removing his chin from his hand and sitting up straighter. "I agree."

Jamie smiled at them before staring back down at Scott. "Please, Scott? Please."

There was another silence before the other boy sighed and sat up, closing his eyes and pressing the palms of his hands over the lids. "One, two, three, four . . ."

The other three boys shot up and bolted to find hiding places as Scott continued until he finished. "Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Here I come, ready or not!" He got up to look for them, yelling his second sentence so they could hear him no matter where they were in the house.

XXXXX

Richard closed the backdoor silently as he walked in so as to not disturb the boys in whatever it was they had found to do. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he padded into the kitchen and opened the pantry door to find something to eat, stretching out his hand – and almost slapping Pedro in the face.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?!" he yelled, jumping back in shock and removing his hand from its position of less than an inch from the Peruvian boy's nose. Pedro stared up at him, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms around them, back against the wall. Richard turned around as he heard footsteps running up to him and saw Scott round the corner first, followed by Matt and the Jamie. Scott grinned. "Found you."

"No, you didn't, Richard did." Pedro grumbled, getting to his feet and walking out of the pantry, passed the baffled journalist. "Would someone please tell me what's going on?"

Matt looked at him. "We're playing hide and seek. Scott was it."

Richard's gape turned into a frown as he stared at each of the four boys in turn. "Why?"

"That's what I said." Scott butted in before Jamie shrugged and said, "Nothing else to do." There was a brief pause before he added, "You want to play?"

More silence eschewed, before Richard said, "Okay." They stared at him before Scott turned to Matt and said, "Alright, I found you first, so you're it."

They scattered as Matt started counting in the fashion Scott had. Richard ran up the stairs and into Matt's room, noticing that Pedro went into the bathroom and Jamie and Scott had stayed to hide downstairs. Richard looked around desperately and noted that there really wasn't any good place to hide in the bedroom, but it was too late to go anywhere else as he faintly heard Matt call to them, "Here I come, ready or not!"

With nowhere else to go, Richard crawled under the bed; he then realised what a bad choice it was and mentally kicked himself, but really, where else was there to hide? Besides, Matt was already upstairs. He could hear him walking down the corridor, straight towards his own room, but he stopped halfway and opened the bathroom door. Evidently, Pedro had not chosen a good spot and he soon heard Matt say, "Got you, Pedro!" and Pedro's reluctant resignation.

Then the bedroom door opened and Richard could see Matt's trainers. He remained very still as he couldn't move in any direction without some part of him sticking out and for fear of bumping his head as the base was so close to the ground. Matt walked around the room for a few more minutes, checking his closet and the space where the bed stopped just short of touching the wall, before turning and leaving to look elsewhere. Richard breathed a sigh of relief that Matt hadn't thought to look under the bed and wondering why. He then tried to move and realised exactly why. He was stuck!

A quarter of an hour passed with Richard struggling uselessly to free himself before he finally gave up and yelled, "Matt!" loud enough so they could all hear, even if they were downstairs. A minute which felt like an hour dragged on until the door opened and Matt's voice sounded above his head, "Richard?"

"Under the bed!"

Matt lay himself flat on his stomach to peer under his bed and asked incredulously, "How did you get under there? You'd never be able to fit!"

"I know!" Richard groaned. "I can't get out – I'm stuck!"

"Maybe we could pull him out if will all did it?" Jamie suggested. It was then Richard realised all four boys were in the room, not just Matt. Matt turned himself around to lay so Richard could only see his face and arms as he reached them in, leaving the rest of the space free for the other three to lay down on. Soon all of them had grabbed the closest bit of Richard and were pulling to get him out. Unfortunately, he could not be budged.

The four boys stopped for a minute and Matt pulled away to sit up. "Sorry, Richard, but you are well and truly wedged."

"We'll have to lift the bed off of him." Scott reported grimly, as he too, got off of his stomach. The other two quickly followed suit and soon Scott and Jamie were on the side nearest the door while Matt and Pedro were in the space between the bed and the wall. They all seized the underside of the bed and heaved. The bed's bottom legs lifted off the ground and the bed rose – until a piece of wood bracing the legs got caught on the wooden trunk in front of it. The teenagers groan and gently lowered the bed back on Richard.

Pedro and Scott, being the closest to the nuisance, both moved and gripped one side of it to slide it out of place, towards Scott, but it got stuck on the leg that jutted out in front of it. "You'll have to lift it." Matt said wearily from his position observing them.

"Yeah, I figured that out for myself, you know." Scott snapped. "Of all the stupid places to hide . . ."

The two teenagers heaved and lifted it up into their arms, both buckling under the weight and the effort. Pedro cursed in Spanish and Scott growled, "God! What the hell is in this thing?!"

Suddenly a voice floated up to them with the slamming of the front door. "Hello! Richard! Boys! Where are you?!"

The boys froze and Richard said, "Get me outta here – quick!"

Matt took charge. "Jamie, help me lift this on three. Pedro, go distract her for a minute." Pedro nodded and ran out the door, dumping all the weight of the chest on Scott.

"Uh, guys–"

"Not now, Scott." Matt cut him off. "Okay, one, two, three!" and he and Jamie pulled the bed off of Richard, who gratefully crawled out. Matt and Jamie lowered the bed back down carefully.

"Guys–"

"Thanks boys," Richard said breathlessly. "Now, let's not tell the professor about this. It's a good thing you were so quiet."

"GUYS!" Scott shouted, just as his arms gave way and he dropped the chest, which smashed clean through the floor of the room and straight down to smash into the living room floor. As it happened right at his feet, the rest of the floor around him bent towards the hole and Scott toppled into it as well. With a yell, Jamie lunged forward and flung his body weight onto Scott's legs as his hips were about to disappear into the floor below, keeping him on the top floor as securely as possible.

"Get me up!" Scott yelled up at them, as Professor Chambers shouted, "What the hell is going on?!" followed by her rapid footsteps up the stairs towards them.

Reaching forwards, Matt was able to grab Scott's arms and haul him up towards them, Richard wrapping his arms around his waist as soon as he was close enough and they managed to pull him up towards them as the professor burst into the room, followed by Pedro. So they were forced to recount exactly what had happened as she stared at then as if they were all insane.

"So . . ." Richard began. "Have we got the power back?"

"Yes." The woman answered lightly, still gaping at them all. "Well, I guess the moral of that story is when Jamie comes up with an idea, listen to Scott."

"Hey!" Jamie butted in. "That's not fair – he always shoots down my ideas!" The woman nodded, "Yes, that's why we should listen to him."

Jamie scowled for a minute before stopping short to say suddenly, "Pedro, what's that stuff on your butt?"

Pedro looked over his shoulder and twisted his hips around so he could see the stain on the seat of his jeans.

"It's banana." Professor Chambers explained. "I dropped the food I bought when the chest went through the roof and Pedro slipped on spilt milk and landed on his backside on a bunch of bananas."

Jamie laughed, as did Richard, as Pedro's cheeks went red from embarrassment. The laughter seemed to shake the professor from her odd trance as she turned to Matt and said, "Could you lift the shattered bits of wood back up through the hole, please?"

Matt nodded and used his power so soon all the remains of the chest floated through the air and landed in a somewhat neat pile in the corner of the room.

There was silence until Scott turned to face him and asked, "If you could do that, why didn't you just lift the bed off of Richard and the chest yourself?"

Matt stared at him blankly and then shrugged. "Guess it didn't occur to me."

Jamie put a hand on his brother's shoulder as he glared at Matt and breathed very heavily. "Scott, violence is not the answer."

"No, but it'll do for me!" and with that he and Matt both went tumbling to the ground, somehow managing to avoid the hole.

**A/N: Bit long-winded, isn't it? MadCatta, normally I would've sent this to you for beta-ing, but I wanted to post it today and it looks alright to me – plus you did say I didn't make a mistake on the last one I sent you, so hopefully this is the same.**


End file.
